The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“AUGUST ``GUS'' SCHUMACHER” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1634-E1635 on Dec. 1, 2017.
The Department is primarily focused on food nutrition, with assistance programs making up 80 percent of its budget. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department implements too many regulations and restrictions and impedes the economy.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
AUGUST ``GUS'' SCHUMACHER
______
HON. MARCY KAPTUR
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Friday, December 1, 2017
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a biography and list of accomplishments of August ``Gus'' Schumacher. Additionally, I include a copy of the Washington Post obituary article of Mr. Schumacher.
August ``Gus'' Schumacher--Biography and Accomplishments: (Dec. 4,
1939-Sept. 24, 2017)
biographical
August Schumacher Jr. was born in Lincoln, Mass., on Dec. 4, 1939.
--Fourth-generation farmer.
--His father was one of the largest parsnip growers in Massachusetts.
--Gus grew up on a farm in Lexington, Massachusetts.
--His grandfather and great-grandfather were farmers in New York City.
--They grew winter vegetables in glass-enclosed hothouses.
Schumacher graduated from Harvard University in 1961 and attended the London School of Economics.
according to joel berg, ceo of hunger free america
``I had the high honor of working with, and learning from, Gus at USDA during the Clinton Administration. He was a giant who always pushed the envelope to get better programs and more social justice, across America and the globe. He was a driving force in creating the first federal program to enable seniors to obtain extra produce at farmers' markets. He was also the spark for the Dole-McGovern program, through which the U.S. enabled developing countries to start school meals program. When the stakes were high for people in need, Gus didn't take `no'--even repeatedly--for an answer. He kept pushing for new ways to get bureaucracies to aid people in need. Perhaps his most important legacy was pioneering ways to reduce hunger and aid community food systems and, at the same time, transcending the stale debate over whether we should focus on just one of those goals. After leaving government service, he could have taken a well-earned retirement. Instead he upped his work to make fresh, healthy food affordable and available for everyone. As a person, he will be deeply missed. But his legacy has improved the world forever.''
world bank
Took a job in the mid-1960s as a food project manager and agriculture development officer for the World Bank.
He spent the next two decades concentrating on technical appraisals for agricultural-related loans in countries including China, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Developed livestock operations in western Brazil, lent assistance to herders in Kenya and projects in the Kosovo Province of what was then Yugoslavia.
After more than five years as agriculture commissioner, he returned to the World Bank to help restructure the farm sector in Central Europe after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
commissioner of food and agriculture for massachusetts
Between 1984 and 1990 when Mr. Schumacher was agriculture chief for Massachusetts, he created market coupon programs for seniors and low-income families with children.
Also served as the Massachusetts commissioner of food and agriculture; he was appointed agriculture commissioner in Massachusetts by Governor Michael Dukakis.
In 1992, Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Chet Atkins, of Massachusetts, authorized the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program into the federal budget, and today it is a almost a
$6 billion program that allows every WIC mother and child to get vouchers for fresh produce at farmers markets and supermarkets.
Gus raised $17,000 from the state and the Chiles Foundation to create a Massachusetts pilot program that gave $10 worth of produce coupons to WIC recipients to use at area farmers markets.
usda undersecretary of agriculture
USDA undersecretary of agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services from 1997 to 2001.
Gus found that the commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act of 1935's (CCC) stated purpose was the ``promotion and marketing of American agricultural products,'' not just large commodity crops. Gus told the USDA lawyers that he wanted to create a market nutrition program for seniors using the authority of the CCC. ``They looked at me like I just jumped off the fifth floor,'' he recalled. ``They said, no, that's not normal. I said, guys, it doesn't say wheat, corn, and cotton. `Just write me a memo so I don't get indicted' ''.
In 2000, the program began with $10 million in funding, and is now funded at $22 million annually.
In 1997 he became U.S. Undersecretary for Farm, Foreign, and Agricultural Services in the Clinton Administration, and he wanted to try to install a program for low-income seniors at the federal level like the WIC Market Nutrition Program.
On his watch the state Agriculture Department launched
``The Fresh Connection,'' a newsletter and free service that listed the sources and seasonal availability of foods.
senior advisor--world bank
Schumacher directed World Bank teams involved in major agricultural and forest sector re-structuring of post-Communist Poland. Project funding of $450 million was disbursed under Poland Agricultural Sector Adjustment Loan
($300 million) and Forest Development Project ($150 million). He also led teams that developed the first Global Environment Fund (GEF). Which also produced four other successful GEF biodiversity protection projects in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Belarus and Ukraine.
wholesome wave (ww)
Since 2008 he had served as founding board chairman of Wholesome Wave in Bridgeport, Conn., which seeks to increase access to affordable, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
In 2012, Wholesome Wave funding jumped to $2.38 million for 306 markets and 54 partners in 24 states and D.C.--money WW uses to match the SNAP benefits that farmers markets would receive were they able to register themselves for EBT card use. Unlike now-defunct paper vouchers, EBT cards cannot be used at many farmers markets; most lack the equipment to process EBT purchases. Due to this, by 2004, SNAP spending at farmers markets had plummeted to $2 million annually, from
$82 million in 1990. In order to accept electronic benefits, a retailer--whether it was a grocery store or a farmers market--needed authorization from the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which authorization is hard for small businesses like farmers markets to receive. However, this authorization is recognized for its success in preventing EBT voucher fraud. WW circumvents this bureaucracy by using the aforementioned funds to create a match program for farmers markets similar to that used by the government through the SNAP program. semi-official
In California, non-profit Roots of Change, with grant writing assistance from Gus for $1,500,000 for marketing support of incentives, launched a program called Market Match. The simultaneous appearance--and success--of double-your money markets drew national media and grant-makers' attention and laid the foundation for rapid expansion. By 2009, Wholesome Wave granted $330,000, up from just $38,000 the year before, to shoppers at 40 farmers markets in 10 states plus the District of Columbia.
Over the years, he wrote books and journal articles, and taught agribusiness as a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School.
In 2007, Schumacher, along with Cathy Bertini, former Director of the World Food Programme and Professor Robert Thompson, Gardner Professor of Agricultural Economics at Illinois, oversaw the preparation of the Task Force Report of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, titled ``Modernizing America's Food and Farm Policy: Vision for a New Direction''.
In 2013, Mr. Schumacher received the James Beard Foundation's Leadership Award for ``his lifelong efforts to improve access to fresh local food in underserved communities.''
In Boston, the Globe wrote about a time several years ago when Mr. Schumacher, dining out at tony Hamersley's Bistro, sat down at a table, reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out a shiny, ripe red tomato. He asked for a serrated knife, olive oil and a plate, then proceeded to make himself a salad. ``Who's this guy who's making his own salad?'' chef-owner Gordon Hamersley wanted to know. His own tomatoes came from California. Where had Mr. Schumacher's come from?
``Twenty minutes from your doorstep,'' Mr. Schumacher said.
miscellaneous
He chastised breakfast diners for serving English jellies instead of American ones.
Mr. Schumacher made personal deliveries of Asian greens that included pea tendrils, Chinese chive blossoms and Cambodian spearmint to the Washington restaurant TenPenh.
For fun, Mr. Schumacher restored cider mills.
Schumacher was a member of the 21st National Academy of Sciences.
Gus Schumacher, a Force in the Farm-to-Table Movement, Dies at 77
(By Bart Barnes)
Gus Schumacher, a fourth-generation farmer and third-ranking official at the Agriculture Department, told the story of his epiphany about food hundreds of times.
It was the end of a summer afternoon in 1980 at a farmers market in Boston, and he was helping his brother load up his truck with unsold produce grown on their family property in Lexington, Mass. The bottom fell out of a box of pears, scattering the fruit into the gutter.
There, a young mother with two little boys eagerly gathered them into the folds of her unhemmed shirt. She was a single mom, she explained, dependent on food stamps, which back then made fresh fruit and vegetables prohibitively expensive for her. The pear spill was a bonanza.
For Mr. Schumacher, he would say later, it was a seminal moment in his life. He grew up on a farm, and it had never occurred to him that parents would find it hard to provide their children with fresh fruit and vegetables.
He would change it, he told himself.
Mr. Schumacher--who in a 50-year career also served as the Massachusetts commissioner of food and agriculture, a food project manager and agriculture development officer for the World Bank and finally a co-founder of a nonprofit group that tries to improve affordable access to fresh, locally grown food--died Sept. 24 at his home in Washington. The cause was an apparent heart attack, said his wife, Susan Holaday Schumacher. He was 77.
Since that farmers-market epiphany, Mr. Schumacher helped make food assistance programs more generous in allowances for fresh fruit and vegetables. He also became a force in the farm-to-table movement, encouraging restaurants and retail stores to buy produce locally.
In 2013, Mr. Schumacher received the James Beard Foundation's Leadership Award for ``his lifelong efforts to improve access to fresh local food in underserved communities.''
In Boston, the Globe wrote about a time several years ago when Mr. Schumacher, dining out at tony Hamersley's Bistro, sat down at a table, reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out a shiny, ripe red tomato. He asked for a serrated knife, olive oil and a plate, then proceeded to make himself a salad.
``Who's this guy who's making his own salad?'' chef-owner Gordon Hamersley wanted to know. His own tomatoes came from California. Where had Mr. Schumacher's come from?
``Twenty minutes from your doorstep,'' Mr. Schumacher said.
That scene, or a version of it, would play over and over again between 1984 and 1990 when Mr. Schumacher was agriculture chief for Massachusetts. He was always asking chefs whether they knew any farmers who could supply them food directly. He created market coupon programs for seniors and low-income families with children. He chastised breakfast diners for serving English jellies instead of American ones.
``Gus was instrumental in bringing two seemingly obvious groups together who never talked to each other--chefs and farmers,'' Hamersley told the Globe. ``He's basically the architect of chefs featuring locally grown produce. As always, there was a team of people with him, but he was sitting in the chair.''
The Washington Post reported on Mr. Schumacher's work with refugee and immigrant farmers all over the United States. He encouraged them to grow and market their native vegetables, such as amaranth. From New England, the New York Times reported, Mr. Schumacher made personal deliveries of Asian greens that included pea tendrils, Chinese chive blossoms and Cambodian spearmint to the Washington restaurant TenPenh.
August Schumacher Jr. was born in Lincoln, Mass., on Dec. 4, 1939. He grew up on a farm in Lexington, and his father was one of the largest parsnip growers in Massachusetts. His grandfather and great-grandfather were farmers in New York City. They grew winter vegetables in glass-enclosed hothouses.
Mr. Schumacher graduated from Harvard University in 1961 and attended the London School of Economics.
Over his career, he had a variety of consultancies, served as Massachusetts agriculture chief from 1984 to 1990 and was the USDA undersecretary of agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services from 1997 to 2001.
Since 2008 he had served as founding board chairman of Wholesome Wave in Bridgeport, Conn., which seeks to increase access to affordable, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
His first marriage, to Barbara Kerstetter, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 25 years, Susan Holaday Schumacher of Washington; a stepdaughter, Valarie Karasz of Brooklyn; and two grandchildren. A stepson, Andrew Karasz, died earlier this month.
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